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Saturday, 26 December 2015

Further Escalation of Deliberate Attacks on Medical Facilities

In an extremely worrying escalation of their incessant bombing campaign, Russian war planes have this morning struck a number of medical facilities, in a series of deliberate attacks.

From around 09:00am on 25th December 2015, squadrons of Russian war planes carried out a devastating attack on the Central Specialist Hospital in the City of Azzaz, causing extensive damage to several parts of the hospital, and to the surrounding areas.

Russian war planes then carried out another devastating attack on the Maternity and Paediatric Hospital in the same City, also putting the Hospital out of service, and inflicting catastrophic damage to most of its structures.

In addition, Baghdad Hospital in the town of Hreitan was also attacked by Russian war plane, resulting in severe damage to the structure of the hospital, and the death of a member of staff.

These attacks have left hundreds of thousands of civilians deprived of essential medical care, and once again, highlighted the extremely dangerous conditions that medical staff in Syria have to work under on a daily basis. Over 658 healthcare workers have been killed in the past four years, in addition to a substantial number of Syrian doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, detention, torture, in complete contravention of international accords and conventions, for no crime other than providing medical care to the injured.

We take this opportunity to respectfully urge Her Majesty’s Government, the international community, and the international medical relief organizations, to condemn in the strongest possible terms the deliberate targeting of medical facilities by the Russian air strikes, and the ongoing harassment, intimidation, detention, torture, and murder by the Syrian Regime, of medical teams working on the ground to help the injured.

The Syrian British Medical Society
25th December 2015

Editors’ Notes: The Syrian British Medical Society was established in 2007, as a forum for healthcare professionals of Syrian descent working in the UK. It is a non-profit, non-political organization that aims at promoting the highest professional and ethical standards amongst British-Syrian Healthcare Professionals, and the creation and promotion of academic and professional links with the Healthcare Profession in Syria and related organizations worldwide. Since the start of the uprising in Syria in 2011, the SBMS has redirected most of its activities towards helping the devastated healthcare sector in Syria.